Highlights from the press conference:
- The shooting occurred during a mass marking the first week of school
- 2 children, ages 8 and 10, killed
- 17 people were injured, 14 of whom are children
- 2 children in critical condition
- Shooter deceased
UPDATED (12:12 p.m. ET):
MINNEAPOLIS — A shooting Wednesday at a Minneapolis Catholic school killed two children as they prayed and injured 17 other people, 14 of them kids, the police chief and mayor said. The shooter also died.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the shooter — armed with a rife, shotgun and pistol — approached the side of the church and shot through the windows toward the children sitting in the pews during Mass at the Annunciation Catholic School.
O’Hara said the shooting suspect is dead and in his early 20s and does not have an extensive known criminal history.
EARLIER:
By Steve Karnowski and Mark Van Cleave
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS — At least five children were injured in a shooting Wednesday during the first week of classes at a Minneapolis Catholic school, authorities and a hospital said. Gov. Tim Walz called the violence “horrific.”
The Minneapolis city government said the shooter had been “contained” after the gunfire at Annunciation Catholic School and there was no longer any “active threat” to residents.
Walz said on social media that he had been briefed on the shooting.
“I’m praying for our kids and teachers whose first week of school was marred by this horrific act of violence,” Walz wrote on X.
Children’s Minnesota, a pediatric trauma hospital, said in a statement five children were admitted for care. Hennepin Healthcare, which has Minnesota’s largest emergency department, said it also was caring for patients from the shooting.
As police, FBI and other federal agents and ambulances converged on the school, President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post that he was briefed on the “tragic shooting” and that the White House would continue to monitor it.
The school was evacuated, and students’ families later were directed to a “reunification zone” at the school.
Dating to 1923, the pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school had an all-school Mass scheduled at 8:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to its website. Monday was the first day of school. Recent social media posts from the school show children smiling at a back-to-school event, holding up summer art projects, playing together and enjoying ice pops.
At a meeting of Democratic officials elsewhere in Minneapolis, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin noted the shooting and “unknown amount of victims.”
The gunfire was the latest in a series of fatal shootings in the city in less than 24 hours. One person was killed and six others were hurt in a shooting Tuesday afternoon outside a high school in Minneapolis. Hours later, two people died in two other shootings in the city.
Wednesday’s school shooting also followed a spate of hoax calls about purported shootings on at least a dozen U.S. college campuses. The bogus warnings, sometimes featuring gunshot sounds in the background, prompted universities to issue texts to “run, hide, fight” and frightened students around the nation as the school year begins.
